LONDON -- Facing a fourth-and-5 from the Philadelphia 27-yard line, the Jacksonville Jaguars got the look they wanted from the Eagles' defense. So, receiver Parker Washington knew quarterback Trevor Lawrence was going to throw him the football.
Washington got a clean release off the line of scrimmage but then had to fight through contact with Eagles cornerback Riq Woolen, so he didn't see the ball in the air at first. As he got closer to the goal line, though, he finally picked it up.
"As soon as I saw it, I was like, 'OK, there we go,'" he said.
Washington reached out with his right hand, grabbed the ball and pulled it into his body while falling backward into the end zone. That gave the Jaguars the lead with little more than three minutes left in the fourth quarter, and they eventually won 19-17 on Cam Little's walk-off 57-yard field goal at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday.
There we go, indeed.
PARKER WASHINGTON, WOW.
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That sequence isn't anything unusual for the 2023 sixth-round pick, who has been one of the league's most clutch receivers since Week 11 of 2025. Over that span, Washington has 17 catches for a league-high 381 yards on third and fourth downs; his 22.4 yards per catch there is the best in the NFL of any player with double-digit catches.
The foundation for Washington's proficiency began long before he even started school, and it has helped him play as if he's 6-foot-4 despite being 5-foot-10 with 29-inch arms. As the Jaguars' 2026 leader in catches (25), receiving yards (352) and receiving TDs (four), he is well on his way to a contract extension that could pay him more than $30 million annually as one of the NFL's top-paid receivers.
"We consider him an elite wide receiver," Lawrence said. "I don't know what everybody else thinks, but we feel like he's pretty freaking good."
How Washington mastered contested catches
The aggressiveness to make every catch is innate, but Washington's expanded catch radius developed as a result of a game he played with his father, Christopher, beginning at 3 years old and continuing through college.
"One thing me and my dad used to do, he would grab -- it would be anything, piece of balled-up paper, wrap tape around a piece of paper or something like that -- and he would [throw it to him and] say, 'Catch it with your eyes,'" Washington said. "And what I would do, I would literally catch it with my eyes and sometimes the paper would hit me with my face or whatever. So it was just a game, but it was fun.
"But little did I know, we were really training."
Washington's training eventually evolved into normal football drills, workouts and tape study as he got older. The summer before his freshman year at William B. Travis High School in Richmond, Texas, it also became an early-morning routine -- something that continues with the Jaguars.
Washington is regularly one of the first people inside the Jaguars' facility every morning. He was getting there just before 5 a.m. during training camp, grabbing a quick FaceTime call with his trainer to prep for the day's workout. Washington even joked he needed the passcode to turn on the lights.
In his final two seasons at Travis High, Washington caught 124 passes for 2,315 yards and 35 touchdowns, and he joined Penn State as a four-start prospect. Nittany Lions receivers coach Taylor Stubblefield said he was impressed with how quickly Washington picked up the offense. He finished second on the team in receptions (36), receiving yards (489) and receiving touchdowns (six) as a true freshman in 2020.
Stubblefield said Washington's extended catch radius and ability to make contested catches showed up quickly. Washington flashed the latter ability repeatedly throughout his four-year college career, even when it was snowing in a 2021 loss to Michigan State.
"When the quarterback [Sean Clifford] threw it, you're like, 'OK, that's an overthrow,'" said Stubblefield of one play from that game. "And he somehow climbed not one ladder, but two ladders, to go up and high-point that ball."
A detail that Stubblefield left out: Washington caught it with one hand. Then with less than a minute left, he made another clutch, contested grab for a touchdown.
Stubblefield, who is now the receivers coach at Air Force, said Washington makes those kinds of catches because he has a strong lower body -- "He's built like a running back," he said -- and elite body control.
"Sometimes if somebody has bad body control or they're not judging the defense right, they are off balance, which then they might not have full explosion," Stubblefield said. "They're not in a position to be able to maximize that explosion, and Parker does a great job of that, which helps his catch rate be so large for somebody who doesn't necessarily have the measurables for it."
Washington's ascension with the Jaguars
When the Jaguars drafted Washington with the No. 185 pick in 2023, they intended for him to learn behind Christian Kirk, who was coming off the best season of his career (84 catches for 1,108 yards and eight touchdowns) for a year or two. So, while Washington played sparingly early in his first season, Kirk, Zay Jones and Jamal Agnew sat out a combined 19 games in 2023. That pressed Washington into a bigger role, and he responded with 16 catches for 132 yards and two touchdowns, including an acrobatic catch in the back of the end zone on "Monday Night Football" against the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 13.
The same routine of filling in for injured players continued in 2024, as Kirk, Gabe Davis and tight end Evan Engram all sat out time. It happened again in 2025, when injuries to receivers Brian Thomas Jr. and Travis Hunter essentially made Washington the team's No. 1 receiver. That's when he stuck to the starting lineup.
Washington caught 58 passes for 847 yards and five touchdowns, and he topped 100 receiving yards in three of the Jaguars' final four games last season (including the playoffs). Among those catches was a slider against the New York Jets on a ball that Lawrence threw while rolling to his left.
Since the start of the 2025 season, Washington has 80 catches for 1,199 yards and nine touchdowns. His last catch was the one-hander against the Eagles, further proof to Lawrence that -- other than throwing the ball into the stands -- there isn't a spot he can put a ball where Washington won't catch it.
"I think if it's in his vicinity, he's shown that he can make just about any play," Lawrence said. "And I think that's a cool thing as a quarterback to have that trust in a guy to where ... you get a one-on-one with him and just put it near him, and he goes and makes an unbelievable play."
Coach Liam Coen, who has been with Washington for only 23 games, acknowledged that he has seen Washington make so many difficult catches that it sometimes dulls the "wow" factor.
"I mean, you're amazed because of the moment and because of how big of a time it was, but to look back and to continue to see this guy make plays for our team, especially in some of these critical moments, it just speaks to the dude and to make critical plays and critical moments, he's showing that he can step up and do that stuff," he said.
What could Washington's contract extension look like?
The Jaguars have wanted to extend Washington, who is in the final year of his rookie contract (four years, $4 million), since the 2025 season ended. But the sides could not come to an agreement on annual compensation before the season began.
The team has not closed the door on in-season negotiations, and is not afraid to make those types of decisions -- wide receiver Jakobi Meyers and offensive tackle Cole Van Lanen both received extensions during the 2025 season. But with each passing week, impressive performance and contested catch, the price for a new deal certainly isn't going down.
Arizona's Michael Wilson has had comparable production to Washington since the start of last season (107 catches for 1,294 yards and eight touchdowns), and he signed a three-year, $75 million extension in September. That made Wilson the 21st-highest paid receiver in terms of annual salary ($25 million). Baltimore's Zay Flowers ($35 million annually) and Atlanta's Drake London ($35.3 million annually) are also deals of note.
Washington said he's letting his agent handle that situation while he concentrates on playing football. Which means continuing to make the kind of plays he has done his whole life.
"The main thing for me is just really sticking to the foundation of what got me to this point," he said. "And that's really how I've just been able to just make tough catches. I always just wanted to just focus on the ball.
"No matter who's around me, just making the catch."